Part 45 (1/2)
”I tried, Jo,” said Jill. ”I went all-out, but I got outvoted, ten to five.”
Joanna toyed absently with the salad in front of her. ”Is that how they'll vote in November, do you think?”
”No, not at all. They just didn't want to go to the trouble of a special session, that's all.' Before Joanna could comment, Jill added, ”And they're waiting to see if Moonbase can last until November. If Moonbase survives that long, it'll be a strong indication that they really can be independent.”
Joanna let go of her fork and it clinked against the gla.s.s dish. ”Faure's going to attack them again any day now.”
Nodding, Jill agreed, ”That's what I hear, too.”
”Isn't there anything anything you can do?” you can do?”
”I talked with the President. She's not going to lift a finger.”
”We've been putting as much pressure on our Senators as we can,” Joanna said. ”But Moonbase is a private operation, not part of the government.”
”There's not much they can do about it,” Jill said.
”But there must be something!”
”Wait,” Jill said gently. ”Wait and pray.”
Joanna eyed her. ”You sound like a New Morality convert.”
Jill took it with a smile. ”You don't have to be a New Morality fanatic to believe in the power of prayer, Jo.”
Several miles away, in the riverfront headquarters of Masterson Corporation, Jack Killifer sat tensely in one of the tight little stalls that pa.s.sed for offices among the corporation's personnel department employees.
”I'm taking an awful chance, Mr Killifer,” said the young woman sitting at the desk. She spoke in a near whisper; the padded part.i.tions that marked off her tiny s.p.a.ce did not extend all the way to the ceiling. Soft music purred from the hand-sized radio on her desk next to her computer monitor screen.
”Like I'm not?” Killifer snapped, low enough to avoid eavesdroppers, he hoped. His appearance had changed: his gray pony tail was gone; now his hair was dark and clipped short, military style. He had also grown a bushy moustache that he had darkened to match his hair.
”I found your personnel record,” she said, looking worried, ”but, lord's sake, it's almost nine years old!”
”I don't want my old record,” he almost snarled. ”I want you to generate a new one.”
”But that would be a total fabrication.”
”So what?”
”What if my supervisor checks on it? What could I say?”
Killifer had thought it all out beforehand. ”I won't be around long enough for anybody to notice. A week, maybe less.”
”It's an awful risk,” she repeated. ”For both of us.”
”No risk at all for you,” Killifer said, getting fed up with her fears. ”If anybody complains you just tell 'em I showed you doc.u.mentation.”
”Doc.u.mentation?”
Killifer pulled a thin sheaf of papers from his jacket pocket. They were not forged, since they were written by a bona fide personnel executive from the Urban Corps' headquarters in Atlanta. The information in them, however, was completely false.
”Here, scan these into your records before you p.i.s.s yourself.”
”Sir!”
Killifer sighed. These d.a.m.ned New Morality uptights. Can't even spit without them getting wired over it.
”Forgive me,” he said.
”Forgiveness is the Lord's work,” she chanted. Then she turned to her keyboard and activated the scanner.
Good, Killifer thought as he handed her the falsified personnel doc.u.ments. By the time I walk out of here I'll be on the payroll as a member of the Masterson security staff. If this uptight little broad doesn't faint on me first.
Ma.s.s DRIVER.
”Everything takes longer to do in these suits.' Wicksen's voice was calm, not complaining, not making excuses; it was as if he were reading a report aloud.
Doug watched the men working at the end of the ma.s.s driver. While those who worked on the surface regularly had personalized their s.p.a.cesuits one way or another, Wicksen's physicists and technicians were in unmarked, anonymous suits straight off the standby racks.
At Doug's insistence, a team of construction engineers was building a makes.h.i.+ft shelter for Wicksen's people a few dozen meters from where they were busily putting together the equipment for the beam gun. Like one of the old tempos, the shelter was dug into the ground and would be covered with loose rubble from the regolith. Wicksen and his a.s.sistants could run the beam gun from there. Maybe the shelter would protect them from the radiation of a nuclear explosion, if the gun didn't work.
”How's it going?” Doug asked.
”Slowly,” said Wix. ”But we're making progress. We connected the beam collimator this morning. By tomorrow the aiming circuitry should be functional. Day after tomorrow, at the latest.”
”And then you're ready to shoot?”
Wicksen's flat, unruffled voice came through Doug's helmet earphones, ”Then we'll be ready to see if anything really works. After testing the a.s.sembly we can power up the magnets and see if the circuitry can handle the load without shorting out.”
”But your calculations-”
”Mathematics doesn't necessarily reflect the real world,” Wicksen said. ”Physics is more than numbers in a computer.”
”Oh. I see.”
”I remember when I was a kid in high school, we had a volunteer teacher's aide come in and help us in our science cla.s.s. He was retired, used to be a big-time physicist. His daughter was a famous folk singer.”
Doug wondered what this had to do with the defense of Moonbase, but hesitated to interrupt Wicksen.
”He took us out to the gym and attached a bowling ball to one of the climbing ropes. The rope was hanging from a beam 'way up on the ceiling. Then he carried the bowling ball up to the top tier of the benches where we sat during the basketball games.”
”What was he doing?” Doug asked, curious despite himself.
”Teaching us physics. The law of pendulums. He held that big old bowling ball a centimeter in front of his nose, and then let it go.”
”And?”
”It swung on that rope all the way across the gym, like a cannonball, then swung right back toward him again. We all started to yell to him to duck, to get out of the way. But he just stood there and grinned at us.”
Wicksen paused dramatically. Doug waited for him to finish the story.